The Revelations (23 page)

‘What? Where?’

‘The American expansion is going even better than we’d dared hope. He wants me to go over and make sure that people are keeping to the key messages, that the quality of the teaching is up to scratch. It would only be for a few weeks. Three at the most.’

‘But now? With Lee and everything?’

‘I know. It isn’t ideal. But we had been speaking about it before all of this happened and, I don’t mean to sound callous, but I’m afraid that Lee is gone. I want some time to mourn her, some time alone. And I’m afraid that now more than ever the Course is what is important to me.’

‘But what about our group? There are still two more sessions to go.’

‘I’m sure you can handle it.’

Three days later, Marcus was driving Abby to the airport. It was strange to be back in the Audi. He looked for traces of Lee, even though he knew that the police had searched the car thoroughly. When he placed his hands on the steering wheel, he found it somehow comforting that her fingers had been there, not so long ago. The car smelt different, sterile. Abby’s suitcase was in the boot, her passport and ticket sitting in her lap. New York was suffering a cold spell, and so she wore thick gloves and a scarf pulled around her throat.

They headed out of London on the A40, past grim thirties houses with crosses of St George hung in their windows, past furniture villages and self-store warehouses, cinema multiplexes and out-of-town retail parks. They didn’t speak. Ever since looking at the photographs, Abby had been distant, aloof. She disappeared to St Botolph’s early on Monday morning, leaving the flat before Marcus, and didn’t return until after he was in bed. She sent him texts that were cool and civil, suggesting what he might have for dinner. Darwin was with her and Marcus found that he missed the stupid enthusiasm of the small dog in the flat. On Tuesday the day passed in much the same way. Marcus insisted that he take Wednesday morning off work to drop her at the airport.

It was not until they were snaking along the M25 that Abby spoke. Marcus was hunched over the wheel, checking his mirrors repeatedly, pulling out into the fast lane and stamping the accelerator and then slamming on the brakes as he looked for the turn-off to Terminal 5.

‘I know about you and Lee.’

‘What?’ said Marcus as he attempted another manoeuvre, then found himself blocked on the inside by a white Transit van.

‘I said I know about you and Lee. At the Retreat.’

Marcus allowed the Transit to undertake him and pulled into the slow lane. He looked across at Abby.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Marcus. You were seen out on the lake.’

‘Abby . . .’

‘Don’t speak. I really don’t want you to say anything.’ She looked out of the window.

‘I’ve known for a while now. It just took me a while to work out how I felt. And it’s sad, but I’m just not that bothered. I sometimes think we got married to avoid breaking up the other parts of our life. We were happy with our jobs, happy to be part of the Course, we just weren’t happy with each other.

‘I think back to our early days together, and the rows we used to have. I know that you weren’t faithful back then. At university and then when we were first in London. I used to try to find other reasons to get angry with you, but really it was because I knew that there were other girls, and I just didn’t want to face it. I thought it would pass. For a while I think it did.’

Marcus indicated and turned down the slip road towards the airport. Abby’s voice rose in pitch as they neared their destination.

‘But to find out that you and Lee . . . I mean, Lee, of all people. When we knew what she was like with men. The way she’d sleep with just anyone. Well anyone apart from Mouse, who was the only one who really loved her. It can’t even have been a challenge for you. And at the Retreat, which was supposed to be a wonderful time for us. And the night after we had really connected. I lay in bed with you that night and I was proud that you were my husband.’

Abby was sobbing as they pulled into the set-down area outside the terminal. Her nose was streaming and she blew two foghorn blasts into a tissue before stepping from the car. Marcus lifted her bag from the boot and set it down beside her. She turned up to him, tears pouring from her eyes, her nose red and dripping snot. Marcus thought for a moment that an observer might think she was heartbroken to be leaving him. Then she spoke and her voice was hard and cold.

‘And now, and this is the worst, thinking that you could have been the one who pushed her over the edge, the one who made poor Lee . . .’

Marcus tried to embrace her; she pulled away. He spoke very quickly.

‘I’ll park the car. We can talk inside. We should sort this out before you go.’

‘Sort this out? Listen, I’ll call you, OK? Once I’m feeling a little more . . . together. Here, you might as well have this.’

For a moment Marcus thought she was going to hand him her wedding ring, but then she reached into her bag and pulled out her key to their flat. She turned to go. Marcus took her by the elbow.

‘Who told you?’

She shook clear of his grasp.

‘It doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t matter.’

She was already walking away. He watched her stop, check her passport, blow her nose again, and then make her way as gracefully as she could through the sliding doors and out of sight.

When Marcus got home he called his secretary and took the rest of the day off. He was close to using up his holiday allowance, but his secretary was fond of him and he knew she would help fudge the numbers at the end of the year. He took Darwin for a walk around Holland Park, hoping that the dog would be comforted by the familiar setting. He walked up and down the long avenues lost in thought, stepping aside to let Filipina nannies with thousand-pound all-terrain buggies stride past. He stood for a while watching the drab peahens pecking for food at the feet of their resplendent mates, who, like croupiers fanning cards, unfurled their tails to reveal hands of iridescent aces.

Marcus continued down towards the Orangery. He couldn’t believe that anyone had seen them on the boat. The mist had been so thick, they’d been lost in the middle of the lake. He forced his mind back into the boozy haze of that night and searched his peripheral vision. Had there been someone crouched among the reeds, observing their encounter?

The park was closing and Marcus hurried to the northern exit. It was growing dark and there was a whisper of snow in the air. On a whim he crossed straight over Holland Park Avenue and headed up Ladbroke Grove. He always forgot how steep Notting Hill was. The trees that tented the road in summer had lost almost all of their leaves; those at the top of the hill had already been pollarded and held their stump-limbs skywards in protest at the brutality of their treatment. Darwin was tired and limped slightly. Marcus lifted the little dog up and carried him under his arm. In the distance he saw a Hammersmith and City Line train crossing a bridge. The lighted windows of the train looked like lanterns suspended in the air from a string.

Marcus trotted down the hill and was soon passing under the Westway outside the Tube station. He remembered how Abby had dragged him to the market here years ago. They were looking for a birthday present for Lee and had wandered among the tightly packed stalls, pointing at books and T-shirts and all sorts of nostalgic junk. Abby had come back wearing a Tyrolean hat and Marcus an MCC tie. He looked at his watch and realised that Abby would have landed by now. He felt a stab close to where Darwin’s wet nose was tickling his chest.

Marcus turned onto the towpath as the last light of the day left the horizon. He looked into the supermarket as he passed and saw children helping their mothers bag up the shopping, young couples buying inexpensive wine, the jostle and buzz of real life. He made his way carefully along the unlit path, stepping aside to let bicyclists through, almost tripping over a tramp who was sprawled across a bench sleeping off a hangover. Finally, he made out the Jolly Roger that hung from the rear rail of the
Gentle Ben
and saw with pleasure that the lights were on. He knocked on the door, saw the boat sway as Mouse moved around inside, and then, after a few minutes when Marcus heard nothing but the gentle slap of the water against the boat’s hull, Mouse opened the door, beaming.

‘Hello, sport,’ he said. ‘Do come in. And bring that darling dog with you. He’s a fine sailor, you know.’

Mouse had been reading. Marcus saw a copy of
Journey to the End of the Night
lying face-down next to a bottle of white wine and a bowl of pistachios. A small lamp stood on the table and cast a warm glow over one corner of the cabin. Marcus edged himself onto the bench opposite as Mouse found him a glass. Before sitting down, Mouse opened a cupboard and pulled out a tin of tuna which he emptied into a bowl for Darwin. The dog scoffed the fish appreciatively.

‘So has Abby gone then?’ Mouse asked, sitting down to face Marcus. Their knees touched under the table and Mouse edged backwards, drawing his legs up underneath him. He was wearing an old Thomas Pink shirt that was frayed at the collar and strained at its buttons around the belly. Marcus recognised it as one of his own. Abby must have given it to Mouse.

‘Yes. She’s gone.’ Marcus had already finished the glass of wine. He watched with embarrassment as Mouse poured the rest of the bottle into his glass.

‘Sorry. It’s been a shitty day. I’ll nip over to Sainsbury’s and buy you another bottle in a bit.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Abby and I argued before she left.’

Mouse looked up at him.

‘I did think it was a strange time for her to go. With Lee and everything.’

‘She said she needed some space to mourn.’

‘To mourn? So she doesn’t think Lee’s coming back?’

‘Do you?’

Marcus offered Mouse a cigarette. Mouse took it and lit it. He opened the window beside them a crack and they flicked their ash out into the night.

‘I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Sally Nightingale found some books at Lee’s flat. Some diaries. Lee was terribly sad, poor thing. I always knew that she was prone to these slumps, but I suppose I just thought she got down like we all do. Or maybe that she was a little more sensitive than us, you know? That she felt things more acutely, but never that she was so low as to do this.’

Darwin had finished his tuna and was struggling to climb up onto the bench. Marcus cupped a hand under his tummy and lifted him into his lap.

‘I wouldn’t give up hope yet. People write things sometimes just to see how they look. Not everything that is written is meant.’

‘I know, I know. But the pictures of men. So many of them. I suppose I had always hoped that she was secretly chaste. That the men who went home with her were made to sleep out on the terrace or something. And some of them so old and ugly – I saw the photos. It makes me wonder quite why it was she never looked at me.’

They sat in silence for a while. A barge chugged past, rocking the boat with its wake, causing Darwin to stir in his sleep. Marcus eased the dog onto the bench beside him and walked out to the supermarket to buy more wine. He picked out a bottle of good Burgundy and made it to the boat just as it began to rain. Mouse was standing in the tiny kitchen stirring a bowl of pasta when Marcus arrived.

‘You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?’ he asked.

They sat and ate and the rain pounded down on the roof above them. Marcus peered out onto the water of the canal and saw it dancing with the torrent that was pouring down from the sky. He realised at once how cosy and how lonely Mouse’s life out here was. He turned back to his friend.

‘Who called you Mouse? Who gave you the nickname?’

Mouse thought for a moment. Marcus settled back down on the bench beside Darwin.

‘I suppose I did. It was when I was at school in Scotland and obsessed with
The Wind in the Willows
. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was some terrible sadness behind the story. Even in the joyous parts, there’s a kind of elegiac quality to it, and finally I read a biography of Kenneth Grahame and it all made sense.

‘Mouse was the name of Kenneth Grahame’s son. Or actually Mouse was the nickname his dad gave him. His real name was Alastair too, you know? I took my nickname as a kind of homage to him.
The Wind in the Willows
was written for Mouse.’

The sound of the rain on the roof grew louder. The wind blew and the boat rocked. Mouse drew back a corner of curtain, looked out into the night, and then let it drop back. He shivered, then continued.

‘Mouse had been born partially blind, and his dad told him bedtime stories that he’d made up during weekend walks along the riverbank. Because he was sad that his son couldn’t see everything in nature and appreciate the walks with him. Anyway, these bedtime stories turned into
The Wind in the Willows
. And then when Mouse went away to boarding school, Grahame continued to tell the stories in letters he’d write to him every week. Mr Toad was based upon his son, who used to get taken up in new pursuits and then discard them as soon as something more exciting came along. I suppose all children are a bit like that.

‘Despite Mouse’s eyesight, and because of his dad’s help and encouragement, wee Mouse was accepted into Oxford when he was seventeen. The letters with the stories about Mr Toad and Mole and Ratty continued when Mouse was at university. And then nobody knows what happened. It was maybe a suicide pact with a gay lover, maybe an accident. I like to think it was the pressure of being his dad’s only child, of having his dad smother him, that did it. He lay down on a railway track and killed himself.

‘I like the fact that
The Wind in the Willows
is so innocent, so completely removed from everyday concerns and troubles, and yet the story behind it is so dark and heartbreaking. A bit like Lee, I suppose. Everyone who met her thought she was this wonderful, lively girl. Those eyes . . . I’d see people look into her eyes and be transported. But behind it all she was struggling with terrible demons, unable to face the world.’

When they finished dinner it was still raining and Marcus couldn’t face going into the night. Mouse got out a Scrabble board and they played until the bottle of wine was empty. Mouse searched in the cupboards in the kitchen and found a litre of gin. There was no tonic and so they mixed it with orange juice. Soon they were both quietly drunk. Marcus let Darwin out into the storm for a moment. The dog trotted up the riverbank, sniffing the ground, then came back to the boat, soaking wet. Marcus wrapped him in a dishcloth and towelled him dry. He laid him down on the bench and he fell asleep again.

‘You can top and tail with me if you like,’ Mouse said. ‘You don’t want to go out in this rain.’

‘That’d be great. Thanks.’

Marcus brushed his teeth with his finger in the minute bathroom, then took a long piss, breathing through his mouth to avoid the chemical stench of the toilet. When he got back into the main cabin, Mouse was already lying in bed. Mouse’s head was squashed against the curve of the ship’s hull and he wriggled under the covers, trying to get comfortable. Marcus stripped down to his boxer shorts and lay with his back against Mouse’s legs, his face pressed into the musty cushion that Mouse had given him as a pillow. The boat moved every so often as gusts of wind swept along the water’s surface. The rain continued to drum on the roof and Marcus could hear the trees on the opposite bank whipped by the wind.

‘Do you still believe in the Course, sport? Are you glad you’re a member?’ Mouse asked.

Marcus had thought that his friend was asleep. He turned onto his back and stared up into the darkness.

‘I don’t know. I felt very strongly about it at first. After that first Retreat – what? – five years ago, I was evangelical, totally committed. Now I’m not so sure.’

‘Why not? What has changed?’

‘The Course was about us. About the four of us. I thought it made us better people. I thought it gave us something we desperately needed. But look at us. Abby and I are falling apart. I really think it might be over between us. You’re not happy, I know you aren’t. And as for Lee . . .’

Mouse sat up in bed.

‘Lee was a mess. And I’m as happy as I’m ever going to be. And as for you and Abby, you’ll get over it. You’ve gotten over worse in the past.’

‘OK, but how much of Lee was the Course’s fault? And those new members. They look so young. They’re just kids. And they are being told that they can’t have sex, and they can’t be gay, and they have to strive towards perfection. The idea that we’re telling kids who are barely out of their teens that they’ll go to hell if they fuck someone at a party . . . I just don’t think it’s right, Mouse. I don’t think I’ve ever thought it was right, but I just avoided thinking about it.’

‘People need the Course. Look at the way they embrace it. It answers a fundamental need.’

‘Just because people need something, doesn’t mean we should give it to them. I’m going to have to do some thinking. Shit, I don’t know. I miss Abby.’

He felt Mouse reach over and pat his thigh.

‘You’ll get Abby back by staying true to the Course. Being over in the States, seeing how people are embracing it over there, that’s what she needs at the moment. She believes in this more than any of us. More than David, even. Who knows, the two of you could be the next David and Sally. I know that’s what Abby wants.’

Marcus drifted off to sleep, lulled by the rocking of the boat and the sound of rain on the fibreglass roof. The wind lifted small, tightly packed waves on the surface of the canal and sent them slapping against the boat’s hull. Once, the huge gasometer let out a mournful sigh and Marcus turned over, his face pressed against Mouse’s small feet. Darwin snored, curled up on a pile of Mouse’s jumpers in a corner.

Marcus wandered through inchoate, directionless dreams. A noise reached through to his dream-world. He stirred in his sleep. He was aware of a presence, but couldn’t lift himself far enough out of his slumber to decipher it. He felt warm breath on his cheek. He half-opened his eyes and saw that Mouse now lay alongside him, his head on the cushion. One of Mouse’s hands was resting on the point of Marcus’s hip bone, the cold line of his friend’s signet ring clearly discernible.

‘Shh,’ Mouse whispered.

The boat rocked gently and Marcus felt himself drifting off again. Mouse’s breath was sweet. Alcohol, cigarettes and toothpaste. With his friend’s small, tubby body pressed closely against his own, Marcus slept once more. He dreamed of the fern den he had built as a child.

‘Morning, sport.’ The toaster popped and Mouse buttered two slices before topping each one with an egg. Marcus swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched.

‘Morning. What time is it?’

‘Almost nine. You were out cold. Darwin and I have already been for a walk.’

Marcus jumped up from the bed.

‘Jesus, I need to be at work. Fuck.’

‘Oh, take a day off. I have.’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry. Let me have a bite of that. Listen, would you mind popping into my flat and feeding the dog later? I think my spare keys are here somewhere . . .’ He searched through his pockets and found the key that Abby had handed him at the airport. He had been carrying it around with him as a kind of totem.

‘Sure. I’ll go in at lunchtime. I could do with a leg-stretch.’

Marcus wolfed down his egg in a couple of bites and pulled on his clothes. With a wave, he lifted Darwin under his arm, jumped to the grassy bank, and set off up the towpath. When he reached Ladbroke Grove, he jumped on the bus and made his way home. He got dressed without showering, pulled a scratchy razor across his face, and poured a bowl of water for the dog. He realised that he looked haggard and hungover, but he strode into the office with the air of a man who has been working long hours in pursuit of the firm’s interests. His secretary went out to buy him coffee several times during the day and he left just before five, mouthing ‘Meeting’ and tapping his watch at his colleagues as he passed their offices.